Godless Gotterdammerung

When they got news of the atomic bomb, most intelligent men were filled with awe. Yet the most portentous news since that date has been the abundant evidence that mankind in general remains insufficiently aware of his predicament. There has been much talk about how to get the new monster into an unbreakable cage--and few admissions that the real monster is the human race:

P: In one Gallup poll, 85% approved the use of the bomb against Japanese cities; and of the 49% who were against using poison gas, most explained that this was through their fear of retaliation--a possibility which, in the case of the bomb, they strangely overlooked.

P: The Osservatore Romano's unauthorized outburst regretted that the creators of the bomb had not followed da Vinci's example (with his plans for the submarine) and destroyed it, on the ground that mankind is too evil to be trusted with such power. Later, men "high in Vatican circles" spoke of "useless massacre,"deplored "the circumstances which have compelled" the use of the bomb. London's Catholic Herald recalled Pope Pius' "Christian distinction between legitimate and illegitimate weapons of war."

P: The 34 U.S. clergymen (including John Haynes Holmes and A. J. Muste) who sent a protest and appeal to President Truman, while vigorously condemning the way in which the bomb was used, seemed to imply that its use might have been excusable to "save ourselves in an extremity of desperation." They were "grateful for the scientific achievement" behind the bomb and wanted to see its power reserved "for constructive civilian uses."

P: Bishop Oxnam and John Foster Dulles, after protesting the first use of the bomb and pleading that the U.S. "follow the ways of Christian statesmanship," wrote warmly after the Japanese surrender of the American "capacity for self-restraint" and of the impressive "practical demonstration of the possibility of atomic energy bringing war to an end."

P: The Christian Century, after flatly calling the use of the bomb "an American atrocity," explained that this was because the editor did not believe that the "impetuous" manner of using it was "a military necessity." The writer went on to say that military necessities are "beyond moral condemnation," and that whatever is necessary is mandatory.

P: England's Roman Catholic Father Dale Roberts stoutly insisted: "No true Christian can accept the principle that essential evil can be wrought to attain a good end."

One of the most venturesome and pointed comments was made by a nonreligious American, Dwight Macdonald, in his leftist magazine, Politics. He wrote:

"Nobody knew just how deadly or prolonged [the] radioactive poisons would be;" yet they went ahead and made and used the bomb. "Perhaps only among men like soldiers and scientists, trained to think 'objectively'--i.e., in terms of means, not ends--could such irresponsibility and moral callousness be found.

"There is something askew in a society in which vast numbers of citizens can be organized to create a horror like The Bomb without even knowing they are doing it.

". . . This emphasizes that perfect automatism, that absolute lack of human consciousness or aim, which our society is rapidly achieving. As a uranium pile, once the elements have been brought together, runs through a series of chain reactions, until the final explosion takes place, so the elements of our society act and react, regardless of ideologies or personalities, until The Bomb explodes over Hiroshima. . . . The more commonplace the personalities and senseless the institutions, the more grandiose the destruction. It is Goetterdaemmerung without the gods. . . ."

Of scientists who worked on the bomb: "It is fair to expect such men . . . to be aware of the consequences of their actions. And they seem to have been so. ... Yet they all accepted the 'assignment' . . . because they thought of themselves as specialists . . . not as complete men. . . ."

Of the scientists--still unnamed--who refused: "They reacted as whole men. . . . Today the tendency is to think of peoples as responsible and individuals as irresponsible. The reversal of both these conceptions is the first condition of escaping the present decline to barbarism. . . ."

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